Uncovering Decision-makers

Service design often touches upon strategic decisions. Therefore, I was curious to learn about strategy making and execution. In an exchange semester at Copenhagen Business School, I followed multiple courses about designing strategies and how to execute them. The semester contributed to my knowledge about strategy, but it also helped me look at organisations from a business perspective.

One of the assignments was to investigate a company’s strategy execution. Through in-depth interviews, I had to uncover a company’s strategy, assess whether it succeeded, and figure out why (not). The interviewees were a vice president of product strategy and a product manager of a scale-up company. By combining systematic thinking with visualisation, the decision-making process that led to a failed strategy execution was uncovered. It was insightful to learn about what drives people in a work environment, and I will take this learning with me while designing service systems.